Week 22: Support Your People- #AlphaFemaleFriday

Whenever I tell friends and acquaintances that I work with two creative, strong-willed, intelligent, and inspiring bosses, they smile. The moment I mention that they are two female associate directors, they make a slightly perturbed face and say snide remarks such as, “I’m so sorry,” to which I often reply, “don’t be sorry. It’s nothing to be sorry about.”

The other day I had the opportunity to meet with the Israel Ministry of Tourism at their office near the U.N. There were two other ladies with me, one who was a travel specialist with a boutique lifestyle concierge travel agency, and the other who is the president and founder of her own travel agency. We sat in the same room as the male heads of the Israel Ministry of Tourism, alongside their female assistant. As the meeting came to a close, the assistant smiled at us and remarked how refreshing it was to be in a room with more women in the travel industry.

She has a point. She addressed the elephant in the room. While there are certainly many females and minorities in the travel and tourism industry, the higher up the corporate ladder you go, the more you see how evident the pink ceiling becomes. The C-Suite is full of older, straight, white, and able-bodied males.

The focus for this week is to support your people, whoever those people are. I am inclined to say that I love to support fellow women in the industry in whatever way I can. Of course I won’t like everyone I run into, but I will respect them. I will go out my way to seek to understand before being understood. I love to learn and to grow, and the more I learn and grow, the more I feel capable of paying it forward to others to teach them. The cycle continues. I’m sending you positive vibes and my best wishes for the week ahead.

Cheers,

Kelly

@AlphaFemSociety tweets by @KellyRGonzales

About:

Each week, I take a tip from Lois P. Frankel’s book, Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office, and explore how each of these tips affect myself and other women in similar positions on the road to becoming the women we want to be. There are far and few between who are a few steps behind me, and many more who are far advanced. I found that Lois P. Frankel’s advice applied to novice, intermediates, and experts alike. It helped me see that I was already doing right, served as a reminder to keep on doing what I was doing and how to keep that momentum going. The book also showed me areas where I could improve, and gave realistic tips to jump on board. There are a total of 133 tips, and explore one tip per week in a program I call: 133 Weeks to Success.

Join the movement using the hashtag #133WeeksToSuccess with posts which are posted every #AlphaFemaleFriday.